Learning Disabilities and Learning Disorders
part 4

At the moment, there is no medical or dietary treatment for learning disability.  the treatment is all hard work and has three elements.  These are remediation, adaptation, and enhancing people's strengths.

This basically means that you have to work a lot harder to learn something than the average person.  In most people, these learning disabilities are not a wall.  It is hard to learn, but not impossible.  With a lot of sweat, repetition, and time, most people with learning disorders can overcome them to some extent.

The problem with remediation is it is not fun.  It is frustrating and requires great patience.  It takes away time that could be spent doing more interesting things.  It also requires a person to do the teaching.

This means that if your child has ADHD, too, you are in for a royal battle.  Persistence with a boring and frustrating task is about the last thing they can do.

This means someone or a group of someone's is going to have to spend a lot of time working with this child.  In 1996, it isn't going to be the school in most cases.  These kids need a huge amount of one on one teaching time.  Many children with learning disorders are getting 1-2 hours a week of intensive remediation.  They need more like 1-2 hours a day. So who is going to do it?

Most often, the parent with the most patience.  In some cases, outside tutors can be hired.  Sometimes there is another relative or friend who will help.

The type of remediation depends on the disorder and the learning disabilities present.  Exactly what to do?  That is beyond this handout.  Here is an example.

Yvette is 8.  She can not read.  She can not figure out the sounds by looking at the letters.  This is called phonics.  So, her father and her go through exercises each day where they practice making the sounds from the letters and the letters from the sounds.  It is sort of a game.  It is not that fun.  It is hard work.  Yvette is getting better at it, but not very quickly.

• There is a lot of patience and perseverance by both the person doing the teaching and the person with the disorder.
• A lot of time is put in to it.
• Other psychiatric disorders are treated, especially ADHD.

Learning can be conceived of as a path or road from perception to processing to memory.  A learning disability is like a road block.  With Adaptation you find a way around the road block.  That is, you look for the detours.  For example, if a person has a visual perception problem such that they are always getting letters backwards, book reports might be done by using books on tape or, in some circumstances, a text reader on a computer.  Someone with a great difficulty recalling math facts might use a calculator.  If you have great difficulty writing, a computer might help, as it does not require fine motor skills.  If you have trouble with spelling and grammar, a word processor with these abilities could be used.  Here is an example.

Ashley is 10.  She has a horrible time reading and writing.  She can not decode well.  This is because she has a learning disability in integration involving sequencing and organization.  She reads words backwards and also sentences.  To read well, her Aunt has to point to each word in order.  It is very slow going.  When she does a science project, her older brother takes her to the library.  They go to the computer and get the information off of a encyclopedia CD and sometimes the internet.  Then the brother puts it in a form their text reader can read.  Ashley then listens as the computer read.  She can stop it and have it repeat if necessary.  This way she can do as well as the other children with her science projects.

• You know exactly where the road blocks are.
• The person with the learning disorder and the parent are creative and resourceful
• Resources like libraries, computers, and certain software are available.
• People have not given up trying.

Any way you look at it, a learning disability can be quite a burden.  Even when it is detected early and everything possible is done, it does not build self-esteem.  It is a nasty experience to see your peers easily grasp something and leave you in the dust.  No one likes to feel stupid.  There are few neuropsychiatric disorders as frustrating as a learning disability.  Yet many people who have learning disabilities live happy and productive lives.  What is the difference between those kids who thrive in the face learning problems and those who do not?

Part of the reason is self esteem.  If children do not think they are worth anything, they do not thrive.  A good analogy is a bank account of self esteem.  With a learning disability, even in the best of circumstances, you are always making "withdrawals" from the self esteem account.  Eventually you will go broke if you do not make any deposits.  Therefore much energy must be put into figuring out how to enhance a child's self esteem (making deposits).

How do you do this?  You find out what this child is good at and likes to do and you help that child pursue it.  The whole experience should be fun for the child. He should find success relatively easy compared to his learning disorder.  People outside the family should naturally praise him or her for his accomplishments.  In some children, this is obvious.  In others, it is not.

Here are some ideas

• Team Sports - soccer, Baseball, Swimming, Gymnastics, Hockey,
• Individual sports - running, biking, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, fishing, golf, martial arts
• Arts - singing, playing instruments, bands, dance groups, sewing, painting, building with wood, crafts, models, theater, cooking
• Mechanics - repairing and building cars, bikes, houses, computers, boats
• Help related - baby sitting, day care, tutoring others, big brothers and big sisters, any paying job.
• Activities - church, scouts, girl guides, swimming lessons, music lessons, school clubs, internet user groups, pets, service groups (SPCA, Red Cross, Cadets)

Since there are only 24 hours in each day, that means that sometimes remediation is going to take a back seat to activities such as this.  It must be so.  Every episode of remediation has to be balanced by something that will be fun and build self esteem.

Example:

Terry is now 11.  He reads at a grade two level.  School is not easy for him.  Virtually everything he learns comes from someone reading to him or telling him.  That means that his testing is oral, his book reports are books on tape, and many other adaptations.  Certainly Terry could feel like he was special, but not exactly in a good way.  But hardly anyone even notices that terry needs special help.  Why?  Because terry can fix anyone's three wheeler, dirt bike, or anything else with a motor.  So with a little help from his dad and his uncle, Terry now rebuilds and fixes three wheelers and dirt bikes.  Since he has the time to take old ones apart, he can usually find an old part for a fraction of the price of a new part.  Terry's friends (and their families) are very impressed.  Everyone talks about how smart Terry is.  Terry is full of grease, but also full of self confidence.

Find out as best you can what learning disability is present.  Get help from teachers, Special education teachers, psychologists, books, and other sources as to what remediation and adaptation strategies to use.  Identify and treat all psychiatric disorders, especially ADHD.

Think just as much about enhancing their strengths as about remediation.  This is the best prevention possible for depression, substance abuse, and worse psychiatric problems.

Make sure you are not trying to do too much.  If parents are exhausted or rarely present or preoccupied, none of this can work.

Be the squeaky wheel!  Don't let your child be written off by the schools or the community.  With determination and creativity, a learning disorder can be treated, but it isn't easy.